This proposal requests support for a conference on "Substance P related peptides: Cellular and molecular physiology." The meeting will be held in Worcester, Massachusetts on July 19-21, 1990, and will bring together a large group of nationally and internationally recognized scientists working in the area, including physiologists, pharmacologists, biochemists and molecular biologists. The scope of the meeting will be on recent advances in the field. The structures, expression and regulation of the two preprotachykinin genes will be addressed, as will the different patterns of posttranslational processing of the multiple precursors. A major focus will be on the molecular biological, biochemical and pharmacological characterization of the multiple receptors for substance P and related peptides. Progress has continued on the development of antagonists permitting new studies on the physiological roles of substance P. Several highly selective peptide-based receptor antagonists have been defined over the past two years, and an exciting recent achievement has been the identification of non-peptide receptor antagonists. Several studies related to these antagonists will be reported at this meeting. Signal transduction mechanisms will be presented from biochemical and electrophysiological points of view. The anatomical localization of the peptides and their receptors, and their cognate mRNAs, as well as their colocalization with other neurotransmitter systems, will be addressed. Finally, the many functions of Substance P and related peptides in specific central nervous regions, in the sensory and the autonomic nervous systems, in the reproductive tract, and in regulation of immune function, will be covered. Substance P has been implicated in the transmission of painful stimuli, in inflammatory responses, in arthritis and in inflammatory bowel disease. Substance P fibers innervate the vasculature including the coronary circulation. Thus the possible clinical implications of substance P will be considered. It is hoped that this meeting will attract many younger persons including graduate students, postdoctoral fellows and junior faculty members to attend and participate in the scheduled poster sessions. The requested funds will used to help defray expenses for these younger scientists.